Fujimura, an outspoken Christian and abstract artist, discusses what he sees as a decline in portrait painting through the lens of the Presidential portraits. This is particularly fascinating since Fujimura’s own work is primarily abstract. Fujimura says:

“A good portrait—like Michelangelo’s depiction of the young Andrea Quaratesi, an extraordinary drawing featured in the recent Metropolitan Museum exhibit, or Madame X by John Singer Sargent across the hall at the Metropolitan—remains enduring because the artist captures more than a person. The portrait moves us away from mere depiction of the external element and begins to reveal the mysteries of the inner person’s soul. Such a work captures both the present reality and historical context of the time. But it also actualizes future audiences to believe in the art of portraiture itself.”

While my friend, Kyle Keith, himself a fine portrait painter, [link] may interact with Fujimura’s thoughts at the level of their shared craft, I enjoyed this as another example of a believer thinking through his work as a way of honoring God.

Danielsen‘s piece, though, is more practical for me, because it interacts with the temptations I face every single day. Danielsen’s topic is how we might reasonably and righteously display outrage, and it is virtually impossible to read or watch the news without hearing a call to outrage. Danielsen suggests that “Of all God’s attributes, his outrage at injustice—with all its wildness and fiery breath—is among the hardest to wield with integrity.”

He poses four questions for dealing with outrage, eventually asking:

Am I outraged by grace most of all? There is nothing more outrageous than the cross. There, God plows the killing field to level the playing field. Our sins lie on the same plane as those who sicken us most. We both are offered life from one cup.

Knowing this shouldn’t quell our outrage. To guilt-trip or Jesus-juke someone into suppressing righteous outrage is a critical mistake and denies something God-given. Yet as creatures driven by the hope of redemption, we should sigh with longing for even the worst of sinners to stop in the middle of the road and turn around.

Be outraged, and sin not.

Each of these pieces is well worth the five minutes or so it will take to read them.

Rachael Denhollander was interviewed by Christianity Today in the aftermath of her statement to the Court in the Nassar sentencing. (If you have not yet read “No True Grace Without Real Judgment” and her statement, please do that now.)

She talks bluntly about the tendency — which she feels is universal — for church leadership to protect the “the perceived reputation of the gospel of Christ” rather than the victims of sexual abuse, when the abuse occurs in the church. It is an uncomfortable indictment.

Here is her conclusion:

“[T]he gospel of Jesus Christ does not need your protection. It defies the gospel of Christ when we do not call out abuse and enable abuse in our own church. Jesus Christ does not need your protection; he needs your obedience. Obedience means that you pursue justice and you stand up for the oppressed and you stand up for the victimized, and you tell the truth about the evil of sexual assault and the evil of covering it up.

[And] that obedience costs. It means that you will have to speak out against your own community. It will cost to stand up for the oppressed, and it should. If we’re not speaking out when it costs, then it doesn’t matter to us enough.

And, continuing the conversation started by LeCrae and John Piper, from Raymond Chang, The Exchange:

3. “Open Letter to John Piper on White Evangelicalism and Multiethnic Relations” [link]

(for earlier parts of this conversation — called to my attention by my older daughter — see LeCrae’s conversation at Truth’s Table [link]; and Piper, “My Hopeful Response” [link]. If someone has the link to LeCrae’s written piece, please send it to me).

Taiwan, it seems, has one of the highest rates of Caesarian births in the world, which leads to two questions.

“What are you talking about, Al?” and “Why is that?”

A Caesarian section is an operation whereby a baby is born by surgically opening the womb of the pregnant woman, usually because of some medical emergency. It was done in ancient times, nearly always at the cost of the life of the mother. I would have guessed that it was called a Caesarian birth because Julius Caesar was born that way, but that is apparently a myth. In any case, it is relatively common these days, and not terribly dangerous.

It is apparently very common in Taiwan, even when it is not medically indicated.

A study followed 150 women in Taiwan who were pregnant with their first child, and found that 93 of them had caesarean deliveries before 39 weeks, though none of them had any complications.

This seemed decidedly odd, since of course pre-term Caesarean births require more medical and surgical intervention, require longer hospital stays, cost more money and are somewhat more dangerous for mother and baby. To be clear, these were not emergency Caesareans, these were elective Caesareans by women who had never been through childbirth before. Continue reading Born at the Right Time

“And Grace calls out, ‘You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.’ Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.”

Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” but it is easy to kid ourselves that he makes no demands whatsoever. The dividing line between believer and non-believer isn’t a matter of fine theological detail, or practical living as a kind, loving person, it is recognition that the Creator has a right to ask something of me that I do not want to give, and that my compliance is flawed. The fine theological details come in deciding what he actually requires. The practical living comes in deciding whether I will give it, and what needs to be done when I fail or rebel.